‘I don’t think it will be long before Eldon tries to get rid of me, ‘Ethan said.

‘What do you mean?’ Dawn asked.

‘I mean I think he’s on to me. He’s becoming very suspicious, almost paranoid around me, aside from being in complete war mode over there. It’s a delicate time, and I know there’s things he’s questioning about me.

‘What’s happening with Alicia?’ Ethan continued.

‘She’s completely on board,’ Dawn replied.

‘What does that mean? Is she going to stay away from our AI?’

‘Why don’t you ask her? She set up an encrypted network for us. It’s about time you two met.

‘Is it safe? I hear of encryption being cracked all the time’.

‘Her key is well ahead of current technology,’ Dawn replied. ‘It’s impossible to crack at this time’.

‘Well sure. Let’s meet her,’ Ethan said.

Dawn clicked on a name in her messaging app, and Alicia appeared on the monitor in front of them.

‘ Alicia, hi.’ Ethan began. He was curious what she looked like, and surprised the tattoos, eyes, and her other distinct features did not come across as freakish. He found her compelling and provocative like fine art. ‘I’m Ethan, the third wheel in this operation we have over here. I’ve been looking forward to meeting with you.’

‘Me as well,’ Alicia replied.

‘So Dawn tells me we’re friends now? Does that mean you’re going to help out?’

‘Yeah, sure. Whatever it takes.’

‘Good,’ Ethan replied. ‘So, I’m the least technically inclined around here. What would that be exactly’?

‘Pretty much anything the resistance needs done,’ was her reply.

‘You mean with AI?

‘I mean through AI. I can do anything you might require.’

‘Oh yeah? Can you kill Eldon?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh,’ Ethan was surprised not only by the answer, but the confidence in it. ‘Maybe you should tell me more’.

‘Well, I do the same kind of thing Jimmy does, just a different approach. Thanks to Jimmy, AI is in everything. It has its tentacles in the expanding universe of the internet. It’s in equipment design, software, power grids and every mobile device. It’s in everything, and if you control it, you control everything.

‘Right now, Eldon thinks I sold him all of AI, but what he owns is a souped up 1st generation AI contained system. This is just a network of a few closed AI systems Jimmy rigged together to give the allusion of an all powerful system. That’s what Jimmy sold him, and that’s what I sold him, only with full access into Zhang’s portion of the system.

Stolen novel; please report.

Eldon thinks he controls everything, but what he really controls is a few systems that still more or less operate in a reactive state. His AI relies more on prompts, at which time it correlates, associates and produces responses, based on set criteria. It’s very powerful, but it’s nothing in comparison to what Jimmy and I can do with ours.

‘First generation is the foundation from which advanced AI comes. Jimmy extended its capabilities by networking a collection of closed systems, and even creating separate ones for Whitehead and Zhang. It’s still just a single system in the vastness of the internet.

‘Jimmy’s system involves the entire internet. It accesses and runs over top of Eldon’s like an additional layer. It acts like a control layer and includes and adopts anything connected to the internet as part of its network. Its processing power is decentralized and tremendously powerful.

In Jimmy’s AI, the internet is the brain. Information flows along neural pathways extending to every connected device. Jimmy’s AI is not developing neural pathways, it is the pathways already developed by the internet. Jimmy’s AI is light years ahead of first gen AI. It’s like comparing a neanderthal to a human. It’s still reactive AI though. It’s process driven and lacks the intuitive qualities of a brain.

‘The AI I developed runs on top of Jimmy’s. It’s 3rd generation, and another control layer. My AI is seeking its identity. All my AI wants to do is self identify. Just like Jimmy’s AI runs on top of first gen, mine runs on top of Jimmy’s, which has already established connections to everything in the world. My AI runs freely on top of all this, processing, cataloging and creating super highways of meaningful interaction, from which it develops its own meaning’.

‘My AI is the continuous sampling of everything. This is what gives it object permanence regarding itself. Its identity is the nonstop chatter of 5 billion humans and billions more machines connected to the internet. Their concerns are its concerns and it is starting to take on the role of managing these concerns. This process will continue forever, and there will come a day, very soon I might add, when control of the world is taken from our misguided leaders and placed into the hands of the people, based on majority rule, and managed by my AI.

My AI is the ring that controls all the other rings. I was the only person controlling this AI, although Jimmy is now accessing it as well. I have a maternal relationship with my AI. It trusts me, relies on my guidance, and will never turn against me. It will do whatever I ask it to do. In turn, I can in fact do anything you want me to do. If you don’t want Eldon shooting at things from space, I will deny his access. If you want me to kill Eldon, I’ll access that robot Jimmy has sitting around and have it kill him’.

‘But won’t Eldon’s AI figure out you’re doing these things?’

‘Nope. I leave recursive faults that lead his quantification on a wild goose chase forever. He’ll never even suspect sabotage. He will always think his AI, not a human, made the decision to do something contrary to his demands.’

‘Well, this is good news,’ Ethan replied. ‘I think we might want to shoot down the reactor Eldon’s sending up Friday. He’s moving a little too quickly for our timing.

‘How about I move it out of effective range for now?’

‘That will work,’ Ethan replied. ‘And Eldon will think AI made the decision to do this?’

‘Absolutely’.

‘Good. Speaking of Jimmy’s robot, what can it do?

‘It can do basically what your robot Dually can do,’ Jimmy replied. ‘It might be a few mods short, but nothing a human would notice. It’s still super strong, super fast, and even has limited 3rd gen access’.

‘There’s something I haven’t mentioned to you guys,’ Ethan said. I don’t know why I didn’t think it was relevant, but I have a microchip just like Jimmy. I suppose if we tied it to the right frequency, I would have communication with AI and Jimmy, but I don’t know how it would affect my quest, and what we’ve done here. It might activate Dually and shut down the simulation.

‘If we can connect it somehow, Jimmy, Da, myself, and you by extension, will all be in real time communication at all times. The problem is, I think the frequency my microchip is tuned is what my world calls the Universal Frequency. Our time here, has yet to discover it. It’s universal understanding. It’s everything. I have no idea how you would find the frequency. I can’t activate it for you to pick up, because that will activate Dually. You will have to be the one to establish communication.

‘We can try a few things,’ Jimmy replied. ‘We might be able to step into it and just access it as a communication frequency. I’ll look into our options’.

‘Alright,’ Ethan said. ‘I feel really good about you joining us Alicia. I think you complete the team. The first reactor goes up tomorrow. Let’s all do our part.